The health insurer MVP Health Care will cut 100 jobs over the next few days.

MVP already has been reducing its job count through attrition and eliminating vacant positions.

After letting these 100 people go, MVP will have about 1,500 employees across its offices in upstate New York, which are anchored at headquarters atop State Street in downtown Schenectady, NY.

MVP provides insurance for 613,000 people across New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. That membership roll makes MVP the largest health insurer based in the Capital Region.

This round of job cuts comes on the heels of two rounds of layoffs in 2013 that erased a combined 90 jobs across the company, primarily at Schenectady headquarters.

MVP president and CEO Denise Gonick, in an exclusive interview with me Friday morning, said the reasoning remains the same: the federal Affordable Care Act. The law, also called Obamacare, which aims to be the largest expansion of health insurance since Medicare (for seniors) and Medicaid (for the poor) were created almost 50 years ago.

"The changes that came through the Affordable Care Act have definitely impacted the way health insurers do business. It's a real game-changing event for us," Gonick said.

"We just have that continuing obligation to keep our health plans affordable, in a marketplace that is very competitive. It's changing very dramatically," Gonick said. "We have to remain as nimble as possible in an environment that is really shifting."

Gonick said she could not yet describe the types of jobs being cut, because she was in the process of communicating the decision to employees companywide.

A core part of the Affordable Care Act is the creation of online "exchanges," where individuals and small businesses shop among a number of insurers competing to sell them coverage.

That competition is designed to reduce premiums for the consumer. Insurers are required to offer the same set of mandatory benefits, and they cannot deny people coverage for having pre-existing health conditions (that are often costly to treat and insure).

"The exchange is a different kind of a sale, a different kind of experience for the consumer that we have to create. And most of that is Internet-based," Gonick said. "So on the one hand, we're automated, but on the other hand, we have to be highly personal."

Employees who are laid off will receive severance pay, and benefits for an undisclosed period of time. MVP has retained the firm of Lee Hecht Harrison to help employees find other jobs--if they don't want to apply for other job openings in MVP.

"We are still hiring. We are still looking for the right people in the right positions," Gonick said. "Sometimes, it is a question of trying to shift while still maintaining our responsibility to our members."

MVP's revenue declined in 2012 from $2.9 billion to $2.7 billion, a 7 percent decline. Net income fell from $32.7 million to $25.5 million, a 20 percent decline. As a nonprofit, MVP puts that money back into reserves and operations.

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